Turning Grief Into Art In The Woodlands — This Ardest Gallery Show Makes the Pieces Whole Again

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Artist Shauna Martin shared the story of her first solo show at Ardest Gallery. (Photo by Laura Landsbaum)

“The Mending Project” will be on exhibit all month at Ardest Gallery. (Photo by Laura Landsbaum)

Shauna Martin (center) and artist friends celebrated at her solo show at Ardest Gallery on October 3. (Photo by Laura Landsbaum)

Gallery owner Julie Verville and gallery guests with the encaustic wax pieces of “The Mending Project.” (Photo by Laura Landsbaum)

“The Mending Project” works include photos, pattern pieces and encaustic wax. (Photo by Laura Landsbaum)

Houston artist and art educator Shauna Martin’s first solo exhibition is showing at Ardest Gallery in The Woodlands. But it’s been a good while coming.

“This was an idea we actually kind of discussed about a year ago,” Ardest Gallery owner Julie Verville says. “It was during a tough phase in her life. And she had made an amazing piece of art.”

Martin took top honors in last winter’s juried show “Materials Matter,” which was the springboard for this new solo show.

The genesis of her show is loss.

“This title was chosen with care because mending is not about erasing what was broken,” she says. “It’s about honoring the memory of a loved one and the role they played in your life. It’s about gently filling the spaces where time has faded the details. Or where the absence feels too deep to repair on your own.

“It’s about choosing, again and again, to make those pieces whole in a new way, so that you can move forward.”

For Martin, the pieces in the series explore the weight of loss and the quiet, stubborn work of healing.

“They remind us that mending is not a one-time event, but an ongoing practice,” she tells PaperCity The Woodlands. “There is no right or wrong way to move through pain. No timeline that is too short or too long. Your process is yours, and it is enough. So as you walk through this space, I invite you to bring your whole self, your joy, your questions, Your curiosity and your quiet moments of reflection.”

A Teacher At Heart

Martin works in encaustic wax, a process that uses beeswax, resin and coloring. She uses pattern pieces and photos in this series. She is also a high school art teacher in Cy-Fair.

“I have been a public school art teacher for the last 15 years,” Martin says. “In that time, I’ve come to believe not only in art’s power to transform a high schooler’s day, but in the capacity to heal across every age and every stage of life.”

Martin has a studio space at The Silos at Sawyer Yards in Houston, and has workshops for teens and adults.

Ardest Gallery is located in Grogan’s Park in The Woodlands and is open Wednesdays through Fridays from 10 am to 2 pm, and Saturdays from 10 am to 4 pm.